The All Progressives Congress (APC) has reacted to what it termed the ‘concocted’ interview published in the Nigerian Tribune of Sunday, December 20, 2015 and attributed to respected legal scholar, Professor Itse Sagay (SAN) where he reportedly dismissed President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption efforts as “selective” and “cosmetic” and further accused APC and its members of corruption among others.
In a response by the party in Abuja dismissing the alleged interview, the APC said, “We are mindful of the axiom: When you fight corruption, it fights back”.
“For the record, Mr. Sagay, a professor of Law, well known constitutional lawyer and head of President Buhari’s Advisory Committee on Anti-Corruption, says the newspaper’s interview credited to him is concocted and represents a desperate attempt to discredit President Buhari’s anti-corruption war. He challenged the reporter and paper’s editors to provide the public with a tape recording of the so-called interview”, the statement said.
The party also said that the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun urges Nigerians who see merit in the war that the President Buhari-led administration is waging against corruption, not to be distracted by this ploy of agents of corruption to discredit it.
“President Buhari in his May 29 inaugural speech declared, “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody”; that position remains unchanged. The syndicated and sponsored campaign suggesting a “selective” and “cosmetic” anti-corruption fight by the present administration should be seen as a plot meant to distract the citizenry from the successful ongoing war to catch looters and recover Nigeria’s stolen common wealth,” it said.
On the allegations by the sponsors of the concocted interview that members of APC are corrupt, the party said that the burden of proof is on the sponsors of the purported interview, adding that Nigerians and the international community are still reeling in shock over the looting and diversion of public funds meant to purchase badly needed arms and ammunition for Nigeria’s Armed Forces to fight insurgents and protect the country’s territorial integrity.
It said, “The President’s assurance that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will be encouraged to publish details of voluntary return of looted funds to the Federal Government’s coffers is evidently causing panic in the camp of looters.”
-Leadership